'Feminism' can't force Muslim women to ditch the veil

The latest debate about where and when Muslim women should wear face veils has
turned nasty, with Tory MP Sarah Wollaston trying to 'force people to be
equal' according to her definition of feminism, argues Allie Renison.

Britain should consider banning Muslim girls and young women from wearing veils in schools and public places, a Home Office minister has said.Photo: REUTERS

By Allie Renison

11:31AM BST 16 Sep 2013

I firmly believe in the idea that feminism should not be about collectivised standardisation but rather freedom of individual expression. Women shouldn't feel cowed by the tyranny of a perceived majority into letting other women dictate how they should set their own standards.

Arguments have been deployed in some circles that other countries require the niqab to be worn, and that this demonstrates its role as a tool of oppression and inequality. This misses the point entirely - it is governments getting involved in prescribing and proscribing dress sense which affords clothing any such meaning, rather than inanimate garments themselves. I for one am proud to live in a country that unlike both Iran and France, prizes freedom of religious and individual expression, and keeps the state out of moralising about either.

The notion that equality should be defined by and wedded to a single set of concepts is obtuse in the extreme. Who am I to tell a woman I meet in the street or sitting next to me on the bus that because I cannot see her face she is not completely equal nor able to participate fully in society? Such thinking reeks of hypocrisy and judgement on the basis of a fixation with the aesthetic. Whatever happened to the idea that there's far more to us than just the way we look?

There is arguably more of a case to ban all face coverings (including balaclavas etc) in places where it could be construed as a security threat, if that were genuinely the basis on which people were premising their arguments. But where objections are raises on socio-religious grounds, conservatives who want to protect liberty and feminists who do not wish to see women's agency undermined should be united in their opposition to such a ban. No one should have an exclusive monopoly on defining what being equal means, not least of all the state.

Allie Renison has spent her career in politics, first in Parliament and now in political campaigning. She doesn’t believe in a glass ceiling and thinks the ambition and achievements of women should be celebrated alongside –not relative to- those of men. Allie can be found tweeting here: @AllieRenison.